Guide · 5 min read
What should a small business website include?
Most small business websites don’t need to be big. They need to answer a few questions quickly and make it easy to get in touch. Here’s what to include, and what to leave out.
By John Bell, freelance web and graphic designer in Birmingham ·
The pages most small businesses need
| Page | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Home | Says what you do, where, and why you, then points people to the next step |
| Services | What you offer, who it’s for and roughly what it costs. One page per main service if you have a few |
| About | The person or people behind the business. Customers like to know who they’re dealing with |
| Work or gallery | Photos of real jobs, before and afters, or a few short case studies |
| Contact | Phone, email, a short form, your hours and the areas you cover |
| Privacy policy | Needed if your site collects any details, such as through a contact form |
A one-page site can cover all of this in sections, and for many trades and local services that’s plenty. My small websites start from £500, and sites with five pages or more from £900. Reviews don’t need a page of their own: they work better spread across the pages where people are making up their minds.
The top of the home page
Most people decide in a few seconds whether they’re in the right place. The first screen, before anyone scrolls, should tell them:
- What you do, in the words a customer would use, not a slogan
- Where you do it, if you’re a local business
- What to do next, with one clear button: call, get a quote or book
A real photo of you, your work or your premises does more than any stock picture. Skip “Welcome to our website”: everyone knows where they are.
Make it easy to get in touch
- Put your phone number in the header and the footer, and make it tap to call on a phone.
- Offer more than one way: phone, email, a short form and WhatsApp if you use it.
- Keep the form short: name, how to reach them and a message is usually enough.
- Say when you’ll reply, your opening hours and the areas you cover.
- End every page with a clear next step, so nobody has to hunt for it.
Give people reasons to trust you
Someone finding you on Google doesn’t know you yet. Your site has to do the job a recommendation from a friend would do.
- Reviews with real first names and places, ideally copied from your Google profile
- Photos of real work, your team and your van or premises
- Prices, or at least “from” prices, so people know you’re in their range
- Qualifications, memberships and insurance, where they matter in your trade
- A real name and face on the about page
Showing prices is the one people worry about most. In my experience, it puts off very few good customers and saves you a lot of calls from people who were never going to book.
Built for phones, and quick
For most local businesses, most visitors arrive on a phone, often in a hurry. So the site should be designed for a small screen first: text big enough to read, buttons big enough to tap, and nothing that needs pinching or zooming.
Speed matters just as much. Large photos are the usual reason a small site is slow, so they should be resized and compressed before they go up. You can test any page for free with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Set up for Google
- Every page has its own title and description, written for the person searching
- One main heading per page that says what the page is about
- A page for each main service and the main towns you cover
- A link to and from your Google Business Profile
- A sitemap, sent to Google through Search Console
There’s a step-by-step version in how to get your business on Google.
The legal bits
- A privacy policy if you collect any personal details, including through a contact form.
- A cookie notice if you use cookies for tracking or adverts. The ICO’s website explains what you need.
- Your company details if you’re a limited company: the full company name, number and registered office address.
- Delivery, returns and terms if you sell online.
This is a general guide, not legal advice, so check anything you’re unsure about.
What you can leave out
- A blog you won’t keep up. An empty news page from three years ago looks worse than none. A few useful guides that answer real questions are better.
- Sliders and auto-playing video, which slow the page down and are mostly ignored.
- Lots of thin pages that each say very little. Fewer, better pages win.
- Social media feeds that slow the site and send people off it.
For a good example of a small site done simply, see the one-page site for Beetle Eyes Clothing, a vintage rail in Mountsorrel. For a bigger one, see Birth-hood, a hypnobirthing and doula business in Leicestershire. I work with businesses in Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield and across the UK.